Now Come and Regret

“… I know. There is no favor without cost.”

Ines wasn’t stupid. There was no way she could be given everything for granted. Even though she knew it, her throat was choked.

“However… .”

Actually, she didn’t want to run away.

She didn’t want to cut her life off. She felt her instincts, that she had thought had died, awakened for a few days.

The tear-filled blue eyes shone like sapphires.

“Kian. Maybe there’s another option.”

She really wanted to live. Do anything to seduce men with her body, eat good food, wear good clothes, be safe and happy in a good place like this….

Kian didn’t say anything more.

* * *

Ines’ wish that she would see the Grand Duke one more time was unexpectedly fulfilled the very next day. He had visited her room.

Ines turned her head away thoughtlessly at the sound of the knock, and then she froze.

The man was standing by the door. While Ines came into her senses belatedly, he came into her room without hesitation.

Rayen looked at her outfit and opened his mouth first.

“It looks good on you.”

They weren’t empty words. Today, Ines was wearing a shiny silver dress. The dress went pretty well with her dark hair. And blue eyes.

Even Rayen, who has high aesthetic standards, was somewhat surprised that she had changed.

That doesn’t mean that she’s transformed overnight, but it’s definitely worth seeing more than before.

Rayen slowly added a word.

“You are pretty.”

Ines’ ears blushed red. She didn’t know where to put her gaze.

As he led her, she sat down at the tea table and stammered in response.

“Ba, Barry picked it up.”

“The maid has a good eye. Is there anything uncomfortable with your life?”

“Not at all, nothing. Everyone is so kind, and this place is too pretty for me. Thank you for your consideration.”

Ines could not look directly into the Grand Duke’s green eyes and lowered her gaze. Compliments for being pretty filled her head, and she couldn’t even tell what he was talking about.

The Grand Duke, who was staring at her, smiled slightly.

“I’m glad you got used to it.”

“What… ?”

“This is how Eleanor treats guests.”

Ines smiled awkwardly, neither affirming nor denying.

Truthfully, she was not yet fully accustomed. Even though things have changed, so much has changed.

But anyway, it was just a dream. It’s better not to get used to it.

“Isn’t it boring to just stay in the room?”

“No, not at all. I… I like this place.”

“I see.”

A languid smile spread across the man’s face. It looked satisfactory that Ines stutteried to answer his question.

It was very attractive to see a smile or a friendly gaze from a person who rarely changes his expression.

To the extent that she lost her gaze without realizing it.

Her heart was beating strangely.

She was a little puzzled by the dull beat that rang in her body.

‘Do I have a fever?’

Come to think of it, it seemed that her earlobe was hot from before. It was like that the whole time she sat down opposite the Grand Duke and drank tea.

That’s weird.

As Ines struggled to calm her heartbeat, the man stood up.

“Yes, I have something to offer you.”

“Yes… Yes?”

As Ines reflexively raised her body, the man who came closer in two steps pressed her shoulder.

“Your, Your Grace?”

“Stay still.”

They were reflected in the mirror hanging across from the table.

Just ten days ago, they were two very different people, but now they don’t look as far apart as they were back then.

Not worn out… She looked a bit human.

Something cold touched her neck. It was a string of a shiny necklace.

In the center of the hanging pendant, a transparent shining emerald was encrusted, and small diamonds were encircled around it.

The heavy weight of the necklace fell down as if binding her.

Ines blinked her eyes and looked in the mirror. The woman in the mirror slowly raised her hand and touched the necklace.

The touch of the hand was real.

But she didn’t really feel it.

The Grand Duke muttered softly.

“As expected, it looks good on you too.”

Her dark hair, white skin, with the green jewelry matched harmoniously.

Dressed in a silver dress with elaborate lace, she looked exactly like a slender, delicate doll.

Through the dark hair, her straight, slender neck was exposed. A warm hand, contrasting with her cool skin, brushed the nape of her neck.

The hand soon descended down the neckline, caressing the green emerald beneath her collarbone.

Ines’s body trembled slightly. A smile crept onto Rayen’s lips, feeling that soft trembling.

“More than before, I like it.”

The woman only had a human form after being completely dyed with his color.

The satisfaction of that fact was, at least, greater than Rayen had expected.

Ines looked at the man staring straight at her in the mirror as if possessed. The jewel-like color on the neck was right there.

It felt like she was falling for that saturated green color.

“… Your Grace. Why are you being so nice to me?”

His hand stopped caressing her necklace. Ines continued muttering to herself.

“You let me stay in a good place, put on nice clothes, give me precious gifts….treat me…..kindly.”

Kindly, is it. Rayen laughed inside, speechless.

It was clear that this woman had never once in her life received a sincere favor from anyone.

For nearly a week, Rayen had almost forgotten about Ines.

He had more urgent problems to attend to rather than this woman. From the reconstruction of the border city of the principality to the problem of the barbarians descending down the northern mountain range, to the problem of supply and demand of manpower to send to the Gelnoah Plain.

The seven-year war caused countless damage to the Principality as well. When he returned to his country after this was over, the next few years would have been hectic with stabilizing the principality.

At that point, would he have chosen a gift or sent it leisurely?

It was his aide who sent her a heap of gifts during the week.

The only thing he chose by himself was the emerald necklace he picked up by chance today.

But is that kind?

‘It’s easier than I thought.’

It didn’t seem necessary to say that he was going to treat her as a person.

As expected, he knew that illegitimate children are always thirsty for affection. Didn’t his uncle always long for love from his grandfather?

The end was betrayal.

Thinking of his uncle, his lips were twisted. He lowered his head so Ines could not see his expression.

With one hand rested on the back of the chair she reclined on, and with the other he grabbed her white and thin hand and lifted it up.

“Well. Think as you please.”

There’s nothing to put an effort into. Thinking like that, it was the moment when he pressed his lips to the back of her hand, where the blue veins were reflected.

Ines turned her head.

“….”

He could feel her breathing very close. His quivering lips brushed against her left cheek and somewhere along her jawline.

It wasn’t even clear whether it was a kiss or not, it was just a touch that was probably meaningless.

Ines raised her head. The two pairs of eyes with different temperatures met their gazes in the distance.

Upon closer inspection, the woman’s eyes were drawn with very delicate lines.

The long eyelashes beneath the thin inner double eyelids trembled, and as she moved up and down, the blue eyes disappeared and reappeared.

She did not know anything about the world, and she was ignorant of the hostile gazes lurking outside the Imperial Palace, and her eyes were full of pure goodness.

A man who had wandered the battlefield for a long time, but because of that, the kind of person was nowhere to be found.

If the world and people were to be divided into good and evil, this woman would be biased towards good from her head to her toes.

With such a thought close to certainty, Rayon lowered his gaze.

There was still a faint blush on her white face, looking down from an oblique angle. On her lips, on her lips….

A sweet breath blew through her neat teeth, under the red watered lips.

Her breathing was erratic. Perhaps her body heats up when she is nervous, and her neck and her straight clavicle are also glowing in a subtle pink color.

He suddenly felt the desire to shake it a little more.

If he lowers his lips like this, what kind of expression will the naive woman make, and what kind of sound will she make?

How far will she turn red?

A dark color stood out in the green eyes, which had always maintained their composure. He wasn’t the type to go mad at women in this way. Then why now?

Cold reason begins to rationalize the urge that has just arisen.

Looking at her objectively, there was no reason he couldn’t approach her.

She was his anyway.

If she had been left alone, she would have rotted in the Imperial Palace of Rezan, and he decided to save her, and he declared that she was his.

The trouble ended there.

Rayen asked quietly.

“Anything else to say?”

There was a small disturbance in the woman. He accurately read the embarrassment and naive enthusiasm reflected in her blue eyes that could not hide her true feelings. An arc was caught in the corner of his lips.

“… If not.”

Rayen straightened his waist and grabbed Ines’ skinny shoulders and lifted her up.

Ines, unaware of anything, stood up stumbling. Rayen’s expression didn’t change at all.

“Your Highness. Why… .”

However, as if proving that her judgment was wrong, his lips overlapped before she could even finish her words.

The kiss was not soft.

As dry as a man’s insensitive expression, his hot and squishy tongue forcibly opened the space between her lips. It slid inside, stirred and mixed it.

The sound of wet rubbing of saliva was intermingled with thin leaky moans. The deeper the contact, the faster the heart beats and the heat sizzles deep in the body.

Ines was not an idiot who was unaware of the desire exerted in the eyes of the man reflected in her vision, in his hands holding her, and in the deep kiss.